


A Secret You and Me House

by Fool of a Book Wyrm (Lafeli85)



Series: Exchanges & Gifts [4]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, M/M, POV First Person, POV Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch, Simon Snow is Gay for Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch, Tree Houses, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch Is Gay for Simon Snow, carry on summer exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:33:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25229134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lafeli85/pseuds/Fool%20of%20a%20Book%20Wyrm
Summary: Baz and Simon grew up next door to each other. When they go back to visit their parents as adults, Simon comes up missing.Baz finds him up in their tree fort, thinking back on their past.Or:The childhood enemies to friends to lovers tree fort AU.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch & Simon Snow, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Series: Exchanges & Gifts [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2077686
Comments: 27
Kudos: 150
Collections: Carry_On_Summer_Exchange_2020





	A Secret You and Me House

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Whambamthankyouma_am](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whambamthankyouma_am/gifts).



> This fic is a gift for [NotCoolTate](https://notcooltate.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr! The request was for Fluff and a good cliche AU. I have never written an AU, and I struggled at first trying to figure out what kind of story I wanted to tell that didn't dissolve into a bunch of angst. I started going through AU prompt lists, and found this from VictoriaBunchWrites on Tumblr: 
> 
> _our parents built a tree-fort in the tree that sits between my bedroom window and yours, and now my parents are thinking of selling the house so you find me hanging out in the tree fort as an adult._
> 
> **I hope you enjoy this AU, Sam!**
> 
> I would like to thank [Jyoti96](https://jyoti96.tumblr.com/)on Tumblr for working with me to create a [A Secret You and Me House playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1lWwcfyHEDKdvvA59lZuiX?si=8OucvVyRSDyOWrMR3kFn-Q) on Spotify!

> **_TREE HOUSE_ **
> 
> _A tree house, a free house,_
> 
> _A secret you and me house,_
> 
> _A high up in the leafy branches_
> 
> _Cozy as can be house._
> 
> ― **Shel Silverstein,** **Where the Sidewalk Ends**

* * *

I climb up the old ladder to the tree fort carefully. It was built for a couple of spry young kids a decade and a half ago. I worry it won’t hold my weight now that I’m twenty-five, but by some miracle it still holds. 

“Simon? I know you’re up here.” I poke my head up through the trapdoor in the floor. The opening feels so much narrower now, it’s almost a squeeze to get up here. Was there really a time when Simon and I could both fit through here at the same time?

I haven’t been up here in years, but it all looks mostly the same. More dry leaves than we ever let accumulate when we practically lived up here as kids, and everything is covered in a thick layer of dust. 

I spot him sitting in the corner, his knees tucked up to his chest. He looks so small like this, not at all like the martial arts instructor that he is. 

“Hey, Baz.” His voice is rough, like he’s been crying. He knows it breaks my heart to see him cry, I’ve always been weak when it comes to him. 

The tree is close to Simon’s childhood bedroom window. We had built a catwalk from the fort to his room, as an emergency escape. The catwalk is gone now, we destroyed it when we tried to use it to sneak back in his room after a party in Year 13. We survived the night, however the catwalk couldn’t handle two grown teenagers. We never bothered to repair it, knowing our tree fort days were numbered. 

“What are you doing up here all alone?” I want him to open up, he usually does, but sometimes he needs a little nudge. 

He’s staring at the doorway to our balcony. Neither of us would be able to get out there without ducking now. We were fifteen the summer we built that addition on to the fort. We couldn’t make it long enough to reach all the way to my own bedroom window next door, but we had fashioned a pulley system from the fort to my room so we could send things back and forth. (Simon wanted to string a zipline so he could feel like he’s flying. He’s an idiot.)

“Do you remember the first time you came up here?” he asks. Of course I remember, I remember every moment we’ve ever spent together. 

“You mean the time you wanted to show off the little tree fort you built with your Uncle Oliver to your sworn enemy?” I quirk an eyebrow up at him. 

He huffs a laugh, “wasn’t trying to show off, you git. But you were always making such a big deal about all of the things your parents gave you. I just wanted you to see this one thing that was mine. Not a hand-me-down, not a charity gift—something that I was proud to have.”

“I’m pretty sure Lucy forced you to invite me up here. Daphne made me come over, she even bribed me with cookies if I promised to be nice to you about it.”

Simon and I were always fighting when he had first built the tree fort. We were only ten, but we had known each other our whole lives. Before we started school we were nearly inseparable. But then my mother died when we were only in Year 1, and instead of turning to my friend for support, I shut him out. 

Father couldn’t see past his own grief to recognise what a mess I had become. I became very good at masking my emotions and pushing everyone I loved away. That included Simon—I cared for him too much. If I held him too close to my heart and something happened to him too, I don’t think I would have recovered. 

“Yeah, but I wanted you to see it,” his voice pulls me back out of my thoughts. “This was mine, and you couldn’t have it.”

“Right—and then you were so excited to rub in that you had a whole tree fort all to yourself that you _fell_ right through the trap door!”

I already know what he’s going to say, this has been a battle of points-of-view for fifteen years. 

“I didn’t _fall_ ! You _pushed me_ , you wanker!” Ahh, there it is. All these years, and he still won’t admit he was just clumsy. 

“I did _not_ push you, Salisbury, and you know it!”

He shakes his head, the ghost of a smile curling on his lips. 

“You were so scared—”

“I thought you were _dead_! You weren’t moving!”

“I was just stunned,” he says. “I opened my eyes, and there was your face just inches from mine, sobbing and shaking my shoulders, begging me to _please get up_.” He says the last part in a mocking sing-song voice, and I can’t decide if I want to hit him or kiss him.

“That was the day, you know.” He’s looking at me thoughtfully now. I suppose I don’t want to hit him at all.

“The day you derived how much I can cry?”

“Stop talking like a dictionary!” He seems to be coming out of his wistful mood. “I mean it was the day I realised I didn’t actually hate you. I’d been jealous of you—you had everything handed to you and you were more popular than I could ever dream of being—but I didn’t hate you at all. I just wanted you to see me. I missed the friend I had when we were little, I wanted him back.”

I sit next to him and take his hand. “That was the day I knew I couldn’t spend another day trying to make you hate me. I knew I liked you, so much that thinking about you made my chest ache.” 

I give his hand a small squeeze, “I didn’t know what to do with that feeling back then. When you fell out of that tree, it hit me like a lightning bolt. I had spent five years trying to push you away so it wouldn’t hurt if something happened to you. Then something did happen, and I wanted to tear the world apart to protect you.”

He smiles at me, that smile that still makes my heart flutter. 

“Being pushed out of that tree was probably the best thing that could have happened to us.” He says it with a smirk, and I truly can’t believe how in love with him I am.

“I did not push you,” I growl at him, but he knows I’m not really mad. This is one point of contention that will never grow old. 

We sit in silence for a beat, our fingers still laced together. “Do you remember the flashlight signal we created to communicate at night?”

“I will always remember. One for _‘I need you/I am here’_ ” I squeeze his hand once; 

“two for _‘Can you meet me?’_ ” I give his hand two quick squeezes for emphasis; 

“three for _‘SOS/Urgent’_ ,” three more squeezes; 

“four for _‘Yes/I’m on my way’,” four squeezes now_ ; 

“and five for _‘No/I can’t’_.” I don’t squeeze his hand this time. “I don’t think we’ve ever used five flashes, not once.”

He knows I could never forget. We still use the codes now as adults, though it’s usually a squeeze to the hand or a morse code message via mobile rather than light flashes now. 

“What about the day you got your acceptance letter to Oxford?”  
  


“Simon, love, I could be one-hundred years old and suffering from dementia, and I will still remember that day.”

He sighs and tips his head towards the ceiling again.  
  
“You were such a dramatic tosser that day. Just a couple of texts saying: _“dot-dot”_ and _“dot-dot-dot”_.”

“I don’t know how you got up here so fast that day.” I chuckle at the memory. He was nearly breathless when his head poked through the fort entrance. 

“You shoved the envelope in my face and demanded I read it to you.” He thrusts his hand out in front of my face and waves it around in a mock proximation of what I must have done that day. 

“And I only wanted to share that moment with you. No matter what it said. To share in the excitement or disappointment.”

“And when I read _‘I am glad to inform you…’_ you burst into tears.”

“And then what, Simon? Remind me.” What happened next was the defining moment that changed my fate forever.

“And then I realised my best friend, the person I had loved for years would be leaving me. You’d make new friends, fall in love with somebody else, and forget about me. Be with people worthy of your brilliance. I couldn’t help myself, I just acted on years of impulse.”

“You kissed me, and my whole world froze. I didn’t know you felt that way about me. I knew I was important to you, your best friend even, but I never let myself think you’d want me the way I wanted you.”

“Everything changed that day.” He gives my hand one squeeze. _I am here._ “We both cried, and kissed, and made promises to never let distance come between us.”

“You promised to be my terrible boyfriend.”

“And I was.”

I can’t help but laugh. He wasn’t a terrible boyfriend, but he struggled for a while about how to be a boyfriend to another boy. “I knew what I signed up for, you disaster.” 

I carefully climb onto his lap, one hand on his shoulder and the other cradling the nape of his neck. I kiss him gently, caught up in our memories of when life seemed so big and uncertain. His mouth is soft, and warm, and tastes like something sugary-sweet. He cups a hand to the side of my face, tracing my jaw with his thumb. 

My fingers find their way into his hair, and I realise I could get lost in the feeling of Simon Snow Salisbury. 

When we pull away, hot and breathless, there are tears rolling silently down his cheeks. 

“What is wrong, love? I wish you would tell me.”

“Mum is selling the house. Says it’s too big now that I’ve moved out and Uncle Oliver has passed on.”

_Oh_. 

Everything suddenly makes so much more sense. The hiding up here, the trip down memory lane, the tears. 

“Is she set on selling?” I’m already thinking ahead. We could do it—if he wants.

“Yeah, she’s already started talking to an estate agent.”

“Simon,” I hope this isn’t too much for him, “we could—what if we bought the house?”

We’ve talked about the hypothetical someday. Someday we’ll be married; someday we’ll bring children into our family; someday we’ll buy our own house. 

His eyes light up. He smiles broad and unrestrained. When he smiles, he’s like the sun. I have always orbited him, and I would give anything to keep that brilliant light in my life. Even if it burned me. I’d give him all that I am.

“Are you serious? I didn’t think you’d want to live here. You love London, we’ve always talked about buying a terraced house in the city.”

“There’s so much space here, Simon. We were happy growing up here. You could have a couple chickens and someday we’ll have children who will appreciate the tree fort where their dads fell in love.”

“Baz, I love you so much. Yes—I’d love that. But only if you’re sure. You can’t do this just because I’m sad and nostalgic.”

“Si, I want this. I want to set down roots with you. I can work anywhere. And where better than here? I already know what flowers I want to add to the flower beds. I can see it all—us building a life together here.”

I cup his face and draw him in for another quick kiss. 

“Let’s get down from here and go talk to your mum. I bet she’ll be happy to see the house stay in the family.”

**Author's Note:**

> **Come say hello to me on[Tumblr!](http://foolofabookwyrm.tumblr.com/) I love new friends!**
> 
> Thank you as always to my amazing beta team. [Sharing_a_room_with_an_open_fire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharing_a_room_with_an_open_fire/pseuds/Sharing_a_room_with_an_open_fire), [BazzyBelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BazzyBelle/pseuds/BazzyBelle), and [HufflePunky](https://archiveofourown.org/works/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&work_search%5Bquery%5D=abbynormalj)


End file.
